Louisville center fielder Denis Phipps, third baseman Juan Francisco and first baseman Mike Costanzo each launched two-run longballs, while left fielder Daniel Dorn added a solo shot to power the Bats to their fourth straight victory over the Indianapolis Indians 8-4 yesterday afternoon at Victory Field.

After earning a late inning win over the Indians in each of the last three contests, the Bats changed things up Wednesday afternoon, as they scored five runs over the first three innings and never looked back on the way to their fourth straight victory.

Louisville got the best of Indians’ starter Brian Burres connecting on two two-run homers. Burres entered the contest having allowed 16 home runs on the season, a total which ranked among the top ten in the International League, and it came back to bite him yet again as he was pinned with the loss to fall to 4-9 on the season.

Phipps quickly put the Bats on the board when he belted a two-run roundtripper off Burres in the top of the first for his fifth home run, and 16th and 17th RBI in just 24 games with Louisville this season.

2B Chris Valaika’s RBI single to right in the third increased Louisville’s lead to 3-1, before Francisco followed with a mammoth two-run shot to right-center field to push the Bats advantage to 5-1.

The Indians would keep things interesting with single scores in the second, sixth and two more scores in the seventh. Indianapolis got on the board in the second thanks to back-to-back-to-back base hits from C Dusty Brown, SS Pedro Ciriaco and CF Gorkys Hernandez.

Brown and Ciriaco then teamed up again to put another tally on the board in the sixth, when Brown lined a two-out base hit to right and came plateward on a triple by Ciriaco.

The rehabbing duo of Alex Presley and Chase d’Arnaud both sparked the Tribe’s scoring rally in the seventh. Presley started the rally with a one out double to right and would come around to score when d’Arnaud tagged his sixth triple of the season.

After Presley and d’Arnaud teamed up for the Tribe’s third tally, RF John Bowker lifted a sacrifice fly to left to plate d’Arnaud and draw the Indians to with-in one at 5-4.

But the Bats responded by tacking on three insurance runs with their third two-run home run of the afternoon in the eighth and a solo shot in the ninth. After Phipps singled sharply with one out in the top of the eighth, Costanzo connected on a blast to right-center to give the Bats a 7-4 lead, before Dorn smashed a solo shot in the ninth to extend the advantage to 8-4.

Despite surrendering a season high 10 hits, Edinson Volquez held the Indians to just four runs thanks to six strikeouts and a key double play to earn the victory and improve to 3-1 on the season. Following Volquez, the Bats bullpen shut down the Tribe as LHP Jeremy Horst and RHP Jerry Gil combined for 2.2 scoreless innings of relief with Gil notching his sixth save.

Indianapolis and Louisville now continue their eight-game home/road series on Thursday night at 7:05 p.m. RHP Sean Gallagher is expected to make the start for the Indians, while RHP Scott Carroll is scheduled to toe the rubber for the Bats